SRI Explained
Feb 22nd, 2009 by Take Back NYU!
One of the demands we presented to the administration was the creation of a Socially Responsible Finance committee. This is not something original to NYU students. In fact, many schools across the country already have such committees, including Yale, Harvard, Columbia, Vassar, Swarthmore, Stanford and Brown. Other universities are leaps and bounds ahead of NYU in terms of this policy. If NYU wants to be on the cutting edge, we have a lot of work to do.
How SRI Works
“Socially Responsible Investing (SRI) empowers shareholders to use their assets for positive change. SRI encourages investors to consider the social and environmental consequences of a given investment, as a factor equally important to, and reflective of, the investment’s financial performance.
“Universities, as owners of billions of dollars of stock, have incredible potential to use these methods and reform corporations to live up to the social and environmental standards that the schools themselves typically embrace. [the Responsible Endowments Coalition, endowmentethics.org]
NYU’s endowment is inherently political. If we are investing in, let’s say, private prisons, we are more than endorsing them, we are actually giving them the funding to do what they do. Without investment in war profiteers, there would have been no war in Iraq. Without investment in genocide profiteers, innumerable lives would have been saved in Darfur.
The Securities and Exchange Commission has declared it a fiduciary responsibility that investors vote on resolutions proposed to the shareholder communities. We have an official policy to not follow this advice from the SEC : http://socialfunds.com/news/print.cgi?sfArticleId=808. Does that sound wise?
The ability to oversee the investments and be an active shareholder can also reap financial rewards. This is the “Responsible” in SRI. It does not encourage the loss of money for the institution, merely that the investor does their responsibility as an investor. Had we had an oversight body before this financial crisis, would we have lost $24 million with Bernie Madoff? Such information is not available on public documents such as 990 forms. We do not know who our current fund managers are. There is no way of knowing who we are invested in.
A great way to invest responsibly is to proactively invest in responsible corporations. We can do this by investing in the community around us, by investing in companies with non-discrimination policies, or by investing in renewable energy. Thus we can make global and local change, using rights that the university already has.
Social responsibility is the thread that connects our demands. It affects issues from war, to discrimination, to genocide and gentrification. We incite changes within NYU, within New York City and all over the world. We are currently responsible for our inaction.
[...] have put up an explanation of what Socially Responsible Investing is. Several students have been evicted from their dorms and there are contact details and a form [...]
That’s not an entirely unreasonable idea, but how do you think those other wound up with SRI committees? Do you think Harvard and Yale students barricaded themselves in the student center like babies and “demanded” one? I doubt it.
Further, the idea that student oversight would some how have prevented the Madoff debacle is beyond laughable. I doubt there’s a single finance, business or econ major among you let alone anyone who actually knows a lick about managing money.
BTW a quick google search revealed that two NYU adjunct finance profs wrote a whole book on SRI. Did it ever occur to you guys to maybe contact someone like that?
Yes, we would have lost the money with Madoff, because it was invested specifically after NYU told the investor NOT to do that. NYU was lied to, and an SRI wouldn’t have been able to uncover the lies anymore than a non-SRI. It’s almost laughable that you would put that up there.
Also, SEC rules about shareholders only apply to those companies which are a) public and b) are listed on a national stock exchange.
Last I checked NYU is neither public, nor does it have shareholders in the fiduciary sense of a corporation, nor does it generate stock that is then traded on any exchange, let alone a national one.
Please, it you want legitimacy and support, do your research and speak intelligently. Otherwise you look like buffoons and embarrass the rest of the student body.
I wasn’t aware that this post and the replies to it had anything to do with pro-Israeli spin. I’ve also never seen the website you’re referencing.
and i believe you, thousands wouldn’t but i do.
NYU Alum, while I personally think the occupation was a circus, on this particular post it is you who looks like a buffoon. Of course NYU doesn’t have shareholders, but it *is* a shareholder in hundreds of listed companies via its endowment fund. That this fund should be run according to the principles of SRI is a perfectly legitimate demand, whether or not you agree with it.
You guys presumably don’t believe in “democracy” (which necessarily involves the use of force to enforce the will of the majority), but rather believe that all decisions must be reached through unanimous consensus.
Given the difficulty of considering the interests of every one of the University’s constituents, both past, present, and future, isn’t a policy of simply abstaining from making potentially controversial decisions about investments “wise”?
Believe it or not, there are people in this world who believe that prisons should not be run by unionized bureaucrats who cannot be fired for incompetence of abuse.
Instead of picking apart every minute detail of Take Back NYU’s Socially Responsible Investment goals, one should support NYU students for making these demands. If they desire to begin to see any change that is of course. If everyone is fine with the wars, genocides, torture, and abuse of any dissent that this country executes then they do not have to worry about SRI at all.
The fact that students are organizing at all is a step in the right direction. By squabbling over details and assuming that these are just spoiled, childish students, who don’t understand what they are talking about discredits their movement.
Thanks Take Back NYU this is the start of something! Let’s not let the administrations stubbornness distinguish any drive we have. Change has never occurred without pressure from below!
ALL Power to the people!
Take Back NYU should have published more material about the occupation, their demands, and the details about what they wanted BEFORE the protest took place and you elected yourselves as representatives of the demands of the entire student body.
How democratic is that?
b: While it would be ideal to garner the support and cooperation of a school with over 50 thousand students, it is unrealistic to think that every person, student or faculty, could have been given notification of an action of this nature. Besides, if the occupation was highly publicized, the university would have shut it down and the demands would have continued to go unnoticed by an even larger contingency of students that would not have taken the time to ask “why the fuck are over 100 students barricading themselves in a cafeteria? Whats their deal?” Take Back NYU! has advertised their website, administered fliers on numerous occasions, and has made their meetings open, as well as the time and location easily available. All students need to have is interest. Nobody has to agree, nobody has to feel the need to defend their beliefs. The administration at this school might be able to get away with not talking to their students, but will all be damned if we don’t talk to each other.